Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK II. xv. 9-16crumbling foundation, you cannot rear thereon evena small building, but the bigger and the strongeryour superstructure is the more quicklyit will falldown. Without any reason you are taking out ofthis life, to our detriment, a human being who isa familiar friend, a citizen of the same state, boththe large state 1 and the small ;and then, thoughin the act of murder, and while engaged in thedestruction of a human being that has doneno wrong, you say that you ff must abide byyour decisions " ! But if the idea ever enteredyour head to kill me, would you have to abide byyour decisions?Well, it was hard work to persuade that man ;but there are some men of to-day whom it is im-to move. So that I feel that I now knowpossiblewhat Iformerly did not understand the meaning({of the proverb, A fool you can neither persuadenor break." 2 God forbid that I should ever havefor a friend a wise fool 3! There isnothing harderto handle." I have decided," he says!Why yes,and so have madmen ;but the more firm theirdecision is about what is false, the more hellebore 4they need. Will you not act like a sick man, andsummon a physician? "I am sick, sir; help me.Consider what Iought to do; it is my part to obeyyou." So also in the present instance." I knownot what Iought to be doing, but I have come tofind out." Thus one should speak. No, but thisis what one hears, "Talk to me about anything else,a A loquacious and argumonlatively stubborn person. Inthe original this noutcucc makes a trimeter scazon, and liencoIH probably a quotation from Homo satirical poem,*Commonly used in antiquity as a remedy for insanity.3*9